Quandry, to use Atlas 21century O-27 Tubular O-27 w/ extra ties?

[vsmith]

I am getting ready to begin rebuilding my small layout, I want this layout to be more realistic looking but I am indecicive as to which direction I should go track-wise. I HATE Fastrack type track, just the look of it, not its performance, because of the very small size of my layout O-27 diameter is a necessity. So my choices are using Atlas 21st Century track, which looks great, very realistic, but would have to be adapted to Lionel O-27 turnouts, or stick with my modern Lionel tubular and just add extra wood ties under. The Atlas is kinda pricey at $4 a piece, and I already have lots of the tubular. The con with the tubular is that I dont know if I can get an exact brown paint match to paint the ties, be better if they came in black.

BTW All the trains will be Marx - tinplate and postwar plastic, and the layout will be a 3 tiered loops on a "wedding cake" small layout. Would appreciate anyones opinion on this.

[fredswain]

A neat thing about tubular track is that it is also the poor mans hand layed track. I bought a bunch of scale sized ties, removed the tubular rails from the standard metal ties completely, and glued and spiked them down to these scale sized ties. I had prestained the ties. When finished I blackened the center rail. This is a very cheap way to do it and far cheaper than buying new track. I call this the poor man's 21st century track system. Here's a finished O-27 straight next to an Atlas straight.

http://www.photos.jcstudiosinc.com/user319/o27.jpg